Guy Fieri on Campus Gets a Visit from its Namesake

Photo: Mike Peters

Guy Fieri greets students outside his new restaurant, Guy Fieri on Campus, at Montclair State University.

Celebrity chef, restaurateur,
author and Food Network star, Guy Fieri, swung by Montclair State University on
December 5 to rub elbows with students and check on his newest restaurant, Guy
Fieri on Campus. The first of what will be a chain of fast casual restaurants
on college campuses, Guy Fieri on Campus (GFOC) is located in Blanton Hall and has
a menu designed for college students featuring food prepared in the chef’s
unique culinary style.

After arriving on campus, Fieri
went right to work in the kitchen at GFOC meeting workers, sampling food and
making suggestions. The chef was happy with what he saw: “I had ‘proud father’
moments,” he said later. “[You should have seen] the smile on my face walking through
there, meeting the team members and seeing the effort that’s being put in. You’ve
already set the bar way up here!”

Made possible by a partnership
between Fieri and Sodexo, which provides dining services to Montclair State,
GFOC is geared to today’s college students who, according to Fieri, are much
more knowledgeable about food than in years past.

“People now days expect great food,”
he said. “We’re so educated through the Food Network…great cookbooks…and all
these great chefs that we’re in the middle of a food revolution. We’re finding
more farmers’ markets, more food to table, we’re all taking a bigger
perspective and it would seem that the kids are leading the way in this.”

Fieri took time out to sign
cookbooks and autographs for the hundreds of students who gathered in the Plaza
at Blanton for a chance to meet him. “This is very exciting,” said Blanton Hall
residents Maya Johnson and Briana Lans as they waited for their turn. Chris
Germinario agreed, saying, “This is awesome!” “We eat here all the time,” added
Mike Nolan, “it’s good!”

The Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host is happy to be involved with
students, who he considers to be a big part of his fan base. “I really
appreciate the opportunity,” he said. “The students are amazing fans of Food
Network and what helps propel my career. And so the opportunity to be so close
to them and to be associated with such cool people and such a cool university
has been great.”

Fieri expressed his appreciation to Montclair
State and Sodexo for helping make GFOC a reality praising the open mindedness,
awareness and forward thinking that made it work. “This is so far advanced
compared to what other people are doing,” he noted. “You are the first ones,
you are the innovators, you are the ones who started it. This is something that
won’t be forgotten—you’re setting the standard.”